For anyone born between June 22 and July 21, the western zodiac can bring up some curious questions. For one, ‘How did I end up being named after a deadly disease?’ And another, ‘What does cancer have to do with crabs?’ Ask an English speaker, ‘How did cancer get its name?’ And they might reply, ‘It’s all Greek to me.’ And guess what? They’d be right.
Cancer of the Zodiac
Our English word cancer comes from the ancient Greek word karkinos meaning ‘crab’. So cancer and crab are synonymous 1. That’s why the zodiac symbol for Cancer is a crab. Well, sometimes it’s a crab. Sometimes it looks more like a lobster or a crayfish. But we’ll let that slide.
Why is there a zodiac sign named after a crab? Well, Western zodiac signs come from a group of constellations which the Sun passes through on its journey across the heavens. This path of the Sun is called the ecliptic. And the constellations it passes through are called the zodiac. The constellation the Sun passes through at noon everyday from June 22 through July 21 is the crab constellation—aka Cancer.
The word zodiac, by the way, comes from the Ancient Greek phrase meaning ‘circle of little animals’.2 The zodiac came long before the ancient Greeks though. We can trace the zodiac constellations back as far as the ancient Babylonians.
Cancer of the Body
So if the Cancer zodiac is a crab because its constellation is a crab, then what does ‘the emperor of all maladies, the king of terrors’ have to do with crabs? Well, according to Hypocrites, the Godfather of Medicine, tumors very much resemble crabs.
There is debate over which aspect of the crab Ancient oncologists ascribed to tumors, but Howard Markel, a historian of medicine, reports that it could have been anything from the ‘hard shell’ of tumors, to the ‘pinching’ pain of tumors, to even the ‘stubbornness’ of the unfortunate malady which reminded these doctors of a crab 3.
Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies, provides an alternate explanation though. He states:
“The tumor, with its clutch of swollen blood vessels around it, reminded Hippocrates of a crab dug in the sand with its legs spread in a circle.… Later writers, both doctors and patients, added embellishments.”4
So if you summer babies have ever wondered why you were named after ‘the c word’, don’t fret. Because ‘the c word’ was actually named after you.
- “cancer” | Online Etymology Dictionary
- ‘zodiac‘ | Online Etymology Dictionary
- “Science Diction: The Origin Of The Word ‘Cancer’” | NPR | 2010
- Mukherjee, Siddhartha | “Oknos” | “Part One: “Of blacke cholor, without boyling” | The Emperor of All Maladies | 2010